The British Navy Book Part 3

But the continually growing decoration in the way of flags, standards, pennons, and streamers must by no means be overlooked. They were, perhaps, the most striking characteristic of the mediaeval war-ship.

The standard or pennon of the owner or commander of the ship--and it must be remembered that he was in those days not a seaman, but always a soldier--was planted at the foremost corner of the p.o.o.p or after-castle, on the starboard side. A ship called after a saint would have, in addition, the banner of that saint, and in the case of the Cinque Ports we may be sure that their arms, "three lions with half a galley in place of tail and hind legs", were displayed on some portion of the vessel. In royal ships there were other banners with the various royal badges, and there were hosts of streamers, pendants, and guidons as well. When fully "dressed", with all her flags flying, the mediaeval war-ship must have made a brave display. Galleys, in addition, had a small staff with a pendant attached to the loom of every oar on such occasions.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fifteenth-century Ship

(_From a painting by Carpaccio_)

Observe the capacious hull, the heavy mast, the way the sail is made fast in the middle as well as by the sheets at the corners, the crane for hoisting missiles to the top, and the darts ranged round it; also the way the main-yard is spliced in the middle.]

Nor must we overlook the ornamental nature of the sails in the times of which we are writing. It was no uncommon thing for the whole of the big square mainsail of a "cog" to be decorated with the arms of her owner.

This is clearly shown in the well-known ma.n.u.script _Life of the Earl of Warwick_, by John Rous. Generally sails, often themselves of the richest colouring and material, were adorned with badges or devices, but sometimes merely with stripes of different colours. Colour ran riot in the war-vessels of our mediaeval ancestors--how different from the sombre grey war-paint of our modern Leviathans!

[Ill.u.s.tration: Ship of the latter half of the Fifteenth Century (_From an illuminated MS. of 1480_)

Note the diminutive figure-head, the two shields amidships--probably placed there for decorative purposes, as the ship appears to be "dressed" with many pennons and streamers. The smallness of the tops is unusual, also the square port-hole and the double-gabled cabin.]

The end of the fifteenth century saw the development of the carrack into the caravel, such a ship as the _Sancta Maria_, in which Columbus sailed to the West Indies in 1492. As her original plans were found in the dockyard at Cadiz, and a replica of the famous original was built from them by Spanish workmen in the a.r.s.enal of Carracas in 1892 for the Chicago Exhibition, which took place in the following year, we know exactly what she was like. She was just over 60 feet long on her keel, and had a length over all of 93 feet, with a beam of nearly 6 feet. She had a displacement of 233 tons when fully laden and equipped. She had three masts, but only the mainmast had a top-sail. The mizzen carried a lateen sail. She was considerably smaller than many ships of her day, but in general appearance and rig she approximated to the smaller ships of the Elizabethan epoch, and she and her cla.s.s may well be considered as forming a connecting-link between the old single-masted "round ships"

and the square-rigged, many-gunned line-of-battleship, which from the time of Henry VIII to Queen Victoria formed the mainstay of our battle fleets. There were, of course, many developments and improvements during this long period, but the type persisted throughout, just as did that of the modified Viking ship in mediaeval ages.

So much for the ships of the Middle Ages. But before we go on to take stock of their crews it will be as well to attempt some description of the way they were fought. Nowadays the ship armed with the heaviest and longest-ranged guns--if her gunners know their work--seems to be able to "knock out" a slightly less powerfully gunned opponent before she can get in any effective reply. The present war has given us many ill.u.s.trations of this fact. The _Scharnhorst_--a crack gunnery ship--with her heavier broadside, was able to sink the _Good Hope_ with little or no damage to herself, and in her turn she was simply demolished by the heavy guns of the _Inflexible_ and the _Invincible_ off the Falkland Islands.

But in the Middle Ages there was nothing like this. All decisive fighting was practically hand to hand and man to man, except for the use of the ram by galleys and the exchange of arrows and stones at comparatively close quarters. But victory was only achieved, as a general rule, when the enemy's ship was boarded and her crew defeated in a b.l.o.o.d.y tussle, at the end of which no one but the victors remained alive, unless, perhaps, some knight or n.o.ble who was worth preserving for the value of his ransom. The military portion of the crew, the archers, men-at-arms, and their knightly leaders, carried the usual arms of their day. The seamen, who were in the minority, probably used knives, short swords, and spears, and made themselves very useful in hurling big stones, heavy javelins called "viretons", unslaked lime, and other disagreeable missiles from the "top-castles" at the head of the mast or masts.

We have already mentioned the fore and after fighting-stages, or, as they later on became, p.o.o.ps and forecastles, that were erected when a ship was going on the war-path. We may note, in pa.s.sing, that in the earlier part of the period we are dealing with, these were so often and so generally required that "castle-building" afloat became a recognized trade, until, in the process of evolution, p.o.o.ps and forecastles became integral parts of the ship.

We may add that, in addition to the fore and after fighting-platforms, special fighting-towers were not infrequently erected, certainly in the Mediterranean, and we may therefore a.s.sume that they were not altogether unknown in Northern waters. These towers were generally built up round the mast, and provided with loopholes and battlements, and sometimes protected by iron plates or raw hides.

One account of mediaeval war-galleys states that in some cases "a castle was erected of the width of the ship and some twenty feet in length; its platform being elevated sufficiently to allow of free pa.s.sage under it and over the benches". King John introduced the famous Genoese cross-bowmen--who so signally failed to distinguish themselves at Crecy--into his navy. The reason most probably was that a cross-bow could be fired through a loophole by a man crouching under cover of the bulwarks or shield-row, whereas a long-bow could not be used in this way. Nevertheless the cross-bow did not succeed in ousting the long-bow in the British Navy, since, in 1456, in the course of a public disputation between the heralds of England and France as to the claim of the former country to the domination of the sea, the French herald claimed for his countrymen that they were more formidable afloat because they used the cross-bow. "Our arbalistiers", he a.s.serted, "fire under cover or from the shelter of the fore and after castles; through little loopholes they strike their opponents without danger of being wounded themselves. Your English archers, on the other hand, cannot let fly their arrows except above-board and standing clear of cover; fear and the motion of the ship is likely to distract their aim." But there does not seem to have been much "fear" among the English archers, and as those that were in the habit of serving afloat doubtless had their "sea-legs", it must have taken a good deal to disconcert their aim, world-renowned for its deadliness.

Still, as we shall see in a later chapter, the cross-bow was a most formidable weapon afloat, and the French herald's argument was a sound one. In the place of artillery the ships of the earlier Middle Ages were provided with mangonels, trebuchets, espringalds and other mechanical instruments for hurling heavy projectiles, which, according to some authorities, were made or imported as the result of the experiences of Richard I and his crusading companions in the Mediterranean. Personally, I should say that they had been known long before that time. A contemporary chronicle of the siege of Paris by the Northmen in 885-7 mentions that, to cover the Danish stormers, "thousands of leaden b.a.l.l.s, scattered like a thick hail in the air, fall upon the city, and powerful _catapults_ thunder upon the forts which defend the bridge". The knowledge of the heavy war-machines of the Ancients had never died out.

The catapult was the old Roman onager, and consisted of a long arm or beam, of which one end was thrust through the middle of a tightly-twisted bundle of hair-ropes, fibres, or sinews stretched across a solid frame. At the other end was either a sling or a spoon-shaped receptacle for the projectile. This end was drawn back by means of levers and winches against the twist of the bundle of sinews and held by a catch. On the catch being released, by pulling on a lanyard attached to a trigger, the long end of the beam was forced violently forward till it struck against a strongly-supported transverse baulk of timber arranged for the purpose. When this occurred the huge stone or other projectile flew on through the air and struck its target with tremendous force.

The trebuchet and the mangonel were very like the Roman ballista, and acted much in the same way as the catapult, except that the motive force was the fall of a heavy counterweight instead of tension. The springald, or espringald, was a large-sized steel cross-bow, mounted on a pivot, hurling heavy iron darts, with great force, which had considerable penetration. In the battle of Zierksee (1304) one of these heavy "garots", as they were called, struck the _Orgueileuse_ of Bruges with such violence that it not only pierced the bulwarks of the forecastle, but took off the arm of one of the trumpeters who were sounding their silver trumpets, transfixed another, and finally embedded itself in the after castle.

One of the most formidable missiles hurled by the mangonels and such machines was the famous Greek fire, knowledge of which had been brought to Europe from the Crusades. Sometimes it was projected through "siphons" or tubes, of which no exact knowledge has come down to us. But it seems to have ignited the moment it came in contact with the air, and was spouted forth with the violence of water from a fire-hose. It destroyed everything that came in its way, and was inextinguishable by water. It could only be smothered by plenty of earth or sand, a material not generally available at sea. The mangonels threw it in barrels.

"This was the fashion of the Greek Fire," says De Joinville, the historian of Louis IX's first Crusade. "It came on as broad in front as a vinegar cask, and the tail of fire that trailed behind it was as big as a great spear; and it made such a noise as it came, that it sounded like the thunder of Heaven. It looked like a dragon in the air. Such a bright light did it cast, that one could see all over the camp as though it was day, by reason of the great ma.s.s of fire and the brilliance of the light that it shed. Thrice that night they hurled the Greek Fire at us, and four times shot it from the tourniquet[7] cross-bow. Every time that our holy King (St. Louis) heard that they were throwing Greek Fire at us, he draped his sheet round him, and stretched out his hands to our Lord, and said, weeping: 'Oh! fair Lord G.o.d, protect my people!'" Such was the terror inspired by this fearful mixture, whose chief ingredient is supposed to have been naphtha. It does not, however, appear to have been used to any considerable extent in Western Europe.

In the latter half of the period we are dealing with, cannon--big, little, and middle-sized--quite superseded the mangonel and other mechanical projectile-throwers. Few large guns were carried, and those mostly fixed rigidly on timber beds and fired over the ship's side--hence the term "gunwale", which we still use in boats, a "wale"

meaning a band of timber. Small breech-loading guns were mounted in considerable numbers in the fore and after castles, some of these, generally known as "murderers", being mounted inboard in such a way as to fire at close quarters on any boarding-parties of the enemy who might succeed in gaining possession of the waist of the ship. Others were mounted aloft in the tops, just as they were in our own days until the tops were required for fire-control platforms. But I propose to give the quaint ancestors of our modern monster cannon and rapid-fire guns a chapter to themselves later on.

FOOTNOTES:

[4] "No doubt the n.o.blemen of France prefer land to sea warfare, so hard and so little in accord with n.o.bility ", stated a French Herald in 1456.

[5] Pavises, plural of Pavois. The "Pavois", or "Pavise" as it was generally termed in English, was a big round-topped shield like a tombstone. It was set up with a prop on sh.o.r.e or fastened to a ship's bulwarks, either on going into action or as a decoration. This is why to this day a French man-of-war when "dressed" with all her colours at a review, for instance, is said to be "_en grand pavois_".

[6] "Of the Tower": this signifies that she was a royal ship, like "H.M.S." of to-day.

[7] A strong bow that needed a tourniquet or winch to draw it back.

CHAPTER IV

Mariners of Other Days

"A shipman was ther ...

All in a gown of faulding[8] to the knee, A dagger hanging by a lace had he About his neck under his arm adown; The hot summer had made his hue all brown: And certainly he was a good fellow; Full many a draught of wine had he drawn From Bordeaux-ward, while that the chapmen[9] sleep; Of nice conscience took he no keep.

If that he fought and had the higher hand, By water he sent them home to every land.[10]

He knew well all the havens as they were From Gothland to the Cape of Finisterre, And every creek in Bretagne and in Spain: His barge ycleped[11] was the _Magdelaine_."

CHAUCER, _Canterbury Tales_.

WE have yet to give some descriptions of one or two actual battles, but I think we will commence by trying to picture the seamen themselves.

What were these old "matlows"[12] like, and how were they raised? The second question is easily answered. As Lord Haldane has stated, compulsory service was never foreign to the English laws and const.i.tution. But we may observe that it has never been carried out in the fair and impartial manner which is now universal on the Continent of Europe, where "duke's son, cook's son", and everybody else has to serve his country alike. No; ours has always been a kind of bullying system or want of system.

In the old days of the Cinque Ports, if more ships were required than they had to provide, their ships were just sent out to "commandeer" any suitable craft they could lay hands on. So with men. Certain places and counties had to provide a regulated quota of soldiers or sailors, or both. If they were voluntarily forthcoming, well and good; if not, the magistrates, the port-reeves, or bayliffs had authority to take as many as they required to make up the number by force, and made no bones about doing so. So while Jones got off free, Brown and Robinson were pressed.

But it was all a matter of luck--at any rate ostensibly. That was the hardship of it, not only then, but in the later "press-gang days".

But, once caught, the mediaeval seaman had little to complain of in the way of pay. That, no doubt, made up for a good deal of severe discomfort. A mariner or seaman in 1277 got 3_d._ a day--a penny more than an ordinary soldier[13]--and in 1370 it was raised to 4_d._ Now, if we bear in mind that it has been estimated that money at that time was worth something like fourteen times what it is to-day, we must admit that the seaman did not do so badly. The master of the ship at this time was called the "rector", and received 6_d._ a day, while his second in command got the same amount. There were no admirals then, but the senior sea officer of the fleet was termed "captain" and paid 12_d._ per diem.

The knight who was in actual military command of a warship would draw 2_s._ a day if he was paid the same rate afloat as ash.o.r.e.

Whether there was a regular scale of provisioning before John Redynge was appointed "Clerk of the Spicery" in 1496, to look after the victualling of both army and navy, I am unable to say, but it appears that the usual "sea-stock" laid in for a voyage in mediaeval times consisted of bacon, salt meat, "Poor John" or salted herrings, flour, eggs, and poultry.

We have little information as to the personality, manners, and customs of the seamen of mediaeval ages. In the earlier period they were pretty certainly more of the long-sh.o.r.e or fisherman cla.s.s than deep-sea sailors. When not engaged in legitimate trading or warfare they generally took a hand at rank piracy. There was a saying about them that the British sailors were "good seamen, but better pirates"! Even the Cinque Ports, which provided the nearest approach to a national navy, achieved a most scandalous notoriety in this respect. But at the same time there is no doubt that the Normans, Basques, Flemings, French, and other seafarers were just as bad, though perhaps not quite so expert. It was the fashion afloat in those days.

We may gather some small idea of what seamen and sea-going were like in the Middle Ages from the pen of one Brother Felix Fabri, a Dominican of Ulm, who went from Venice to Jerusalem somewhere about 1480. s.p.a.ce forbids as long an extract as could be wished, for his experiences are both interesting and amusing. The seamen with whom he came in contact were not Englishmen, but "sea ways" are generally much the same all over the world. He and his fellow pilgrims chose their berths before starting, and had their names chalked over them. He gives many warnings, which those of us who have been to sea can well appreciate. To the would-be traveller he says: "Let him not sit on any ropes, lest the wind change of a sudden and he be thrown overboard". And "Let him beware of getting in the way of the crew, for however n.o.ble he may be, nay, were he a bishop, they will push against him and trample on him". "He should also be cautious where he sits down, lest he stick to his seat, for every place is covered with pitch, which becomes soft in the heat of the sun". Inadvertently to "steal the commander's paint" is a mishap which may easily overtake the unwary on board His Majesty's ships in these latter days.

The chronicler explains that the captain's authority is absolute; though ignorant of navigation, he commands what course the ship will take. He has under him a master-at-arms, a "caliph" or "ship's husband", and a "cometa" or "mate", who sets the crew in motion--like the commander in a modern man-of-war. "The mate's subordinates", says Brother Felix, "fear him as they would fear the devil." The crew--bar the wretched slaves who worked the oars, and of whose tortures "he shuddered to think"--consisted of "compani", nine in number, who were employed on all dangerous work aloft, and others termed "mariners", who, according to him, "sing while work is being carried on to those who do it". This sounds like a "soft job", but the "mariners" probably may be cla.s.sed with the so-called "idlers" in our war-ships, who are anything but idle.

There was a "scribe", with the duties of the purser on a mail steamer of our day, who "arranges disputes about berths, makes men pay their pa.s.sage-money, and has many duties. He is, as a rule, hated by all alike." We must not omit mention of the pilot, or navigating officer, with whom were a.s.sociated "certain cunning men, astrologers and soothsayers, who watch the signs of the stars and the sky". They have a chart, "an ell long and an ell broad, whereon the whole sea is drawn with thousands of lines". One of them was always on duty, watching the compa.s.s and chanting "a kind of sweet song, which shows that all is going well, and in the same tone he chants to him that holdeth the tiller of the rudder, to which quarter it ought to be moved".

The mention of "astrologers and soothsayers" reminds us that sailors have always had the reputation of being exceptionally superst.i.tious. I doubt if this is still true--at any rate as regards the Royal Navy. Take the proverbial bad luck of sailing on a Friday. My own sea experience, which goes back for a good many years, is that Friday was a very favourite day for going to sea. We often left harbour on Fridays. I think it was because on Sat.u.r.day we got a good clear day for cleaning up the ship, then came Sunday--a quiet day--so that everything and everybody was nicely settled down by Monday morning, and we could start fair on the weekly routine.

But from what we know of life in the Middle Ages it would have been indeed strange if seamen had _not_ been superst.i.tious. The wonders and dangers of the deep were very real and close in those days of cogs and galleys--veritably mere specks on the ocean. It is to be feared that seamen of later ages had not the same dread of going to sea in debt as De Joinville the Crusader,[14] or the expression "to pay with the fore-topsail" would never have arisen. Like Chaucer's seaman, some of them "of nice conscience took ... no keep", and were very glad to escape their creditors by hoisting sail and putting to sea.

"Sailors have ever been superst.i.tious," says a French writer on the Middle Ages;[15] "their credulous brains are the parents of all the fantastic beings and animals that they persuade themselves that they have seen in their wanderings, and with which they have peopled the mysterious depths of the ocean. The syrens of antiquity, the monsters of Scylla and Charybdis, have been far surpa.s.sed by modern legendary creations, such as the 'Kraken', a gigantic ma.s.s of pulp which attacked and dragged down the largest ships; the 'Bishop Fish', which, mitre on head, blessed and then devoured shipwrecked mariners; the 'Black Hand', which, even in the days of Columbus, was despicted as marking the entrance to the 'Sunless Ocean'; and the numerous troops of hideous demons, one of whom, in the sight of the whole French Fleet of Crusaders, on their way to attack the Island of Mitylene, in the reign of Louis XII, clutched and swallowed up a profligate sailor who had 'blasphemed and defied the Holy Virgin'."

Strange to say, the St. Elmo's light, or "corposant", was regarded as a heaven-sent vision prognosticating favour and protection. Knowing nothing of electricity, and being unaware that the gradual collection of the electric fluid into the weird luminous b.a.l.l.s of light which, during thunderstorms, sometimes collect at mast-head or yard-arm, is supposed to render the ship less likely to be struck by lightning, one cannot help thinking it remarkable that this phenomenon, which certainly has quite a supernatural appearance, did not inspire more terror than confidence in the seamen of the Middle Ages. I remember two "corposants"

appearing at the fore-top-mast head and at the yard-arm on board the old _Nelson_ in a storm of thunder and wind, off the Australian coast. They remained--occasionally shifting their position a little--for some considerable time.

It was doubtless something of this kind which William, Earl of Salisbury, saw one night, in a hard gale of wind, on his way back from the Holy Land in 1222. The storm was so fierce that he gave up hope of life, and threw his money and richest apparel overboard. Suddenly, when the tempest was at its height, all hands saw "a mighty taper of wax burning brightly at the prow". They also thought they saw the figure of a celestial being standing beside it, screening it from the wind. The ship's company were at once rea.s.sured of ultimate safety, but the Earl was the most confident of all, because he felt certain that he was being repaid for his piety at the time of his initiation into the honour of knighthood, on which occasion he had brought a taper to the altar, and arranged for it to be lighted every day in honour of the Holy Virgin.

FOOTNOTES: